


A Relationship In Five Parts

by SaraJaye



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Feeny The Unmovable, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Life Lessons, Mentors, Shawn Writes Fanfiction, Through the Years, Trolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn first locked horns with George Feeny when he was nine years old. Since then, the man's been a constant presence in his life for better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Relationship In Five Parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ullman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ullman/gifts).



I. Who even asked you?

The first time Shawn ever locks horns with George Feeny is in fourth grade. He's not their teacher yet, but he'd just come over to give back something he'd borrowed from Cory's mom.

The boys have a book report due the next day. Now Shawn personally found James and the Giant Peach boring and James a dink, so he's embellished a little. Trying to make James tougher, the story funnier and more action-packed, given the bugs machine guns and the ability to shoot fire out of their antennas.

Feeny takes one look at it, declares it "rubbish" and demands Shawn actually read the book all the way through instead of stopping after James crawled into the peach.

"But that's boring! It's more exciting if the peach is a big spaceship that fires laser beams and fries the aunts before blasting off into the galaxy!"

"Mr. Hunter, the point of a book report is to discuss the story as it is told, not to make things up. Read the book again and write about the truth." Shawn's hackles raise immediately at being called "Mr.". He's nine years old and this guy expects him to do things the boring grown-up way? Forget it!

"Aw, what do you know, you're just a boring old dude who hates fun. Go play with your stupid flowers." Feeny doesn't even flinch.

"If you wish to get a passing grade, young man, I suggest you take my suggestion seriously," he says before going back to his garden. Shawn shrugs and doesn't do anything to change the report. The old guy's just being dumb, Cory thought it was awesome and Eric said he used to do the same thing with his book reports. Cory's parents said it was creative, and Shawn's own parents probably don't care as long as he _does_ his homework.

The next day, Shawn reads the report out loud and gets plenty of laughs. He also gets an F from his teacher, who tells him to read the book and do the report over again. Just like Feeny said.

"I told ya," Cory says when they come back to Shawn's house for chips, soda and scrambled cable. "Feeny's the king of all stuffy jerks and all the teachers do just like he says. He got to Mrs. Perkins and he's gonna get to every teacher there is until they're all just Feeny clones." And since Cory's lived next door to Feeny forever, Shawn believes him. Feeny is now his arch-nemesis.

 

II. My mission in life is to annoy you

By sixth grade, he and Cory are the bane of Feeny's existence. They listen to baseball in class, make noises and rude comments during lessons, throw spitballs at the teacher's pet. More than once they're separated for class project and Shawn ends up working with the teacher's pet. This has its good side, though; Stuart Minkus doesn't like, trust or respect him. So he does all the work, even if Shawn puts up the token begging to let him help so Feeny won't get suspicious.

The fact that Feeny lives next door is becoming more and more of a problem. He and Cory barely get away with anything even if Cory's parents aren't home because that stuffy face is watching them like a hawk. Their only refuge anymore is at Shawn's place, both his parents are gone most of the day and Feeny's nowhere in sight.

Feeny's like...some non-giving-up school guy, though. No matter how much Cory and Shawn mock his lessons or disrupt class or refuse to do the homework properly, no matter how many tests they screw up. No matter how much they torture Minkus. Cory apparently has more potential than he thinks, but Shawn's just a misfit. Most other teachers would have started ignoring him by now. Why doesn't Feeny?

At one point, he suspects Feeny's gotten through to him, and it scares him. Cory's taken over as teacher for a week due to a bet, and he's obviously using Feeny's lesson when he goes on about prejudice and racism and Anne Frank. _What if you lived in a country where I could kill you because of your mom's last name?_ Cory's words, Feeny's assignment.

He gets a B on the test. It's the first good grade he's gotten since...well, ever.

In seventh grade, he pulls a prank in the school paper to make Feeny look dumb. Cory refuses to rat him out, but in the end Feeny figured it out on his own. Cory gets detention, but Feeny's got something much worse in store for Shawn.

"As of right now, Mr. Hunter, you are my new special friend. I will be watching you."

Shawn immediately chews Cory out for not turning him in. He'd rather do a lifetime of detention than have Feeny stalking him for the rest of the year. And true to his word, Feeny's worse than ever. He manages to get away with flooding the hallway once, but his and Cory's radio show gets shut down. It takes Turner tricking him and Cory into cheating to get him to buckle down, study and get his first A- ever, and later he finds out the whole thing was a setup by Feeny.

The man's on his back like a bad rash, and it's getting harder and harder to shake him off.

 

III. Maybe I've misjudged you

It's not until they're in ninth grade, three years later, that he realizes Feeny's human. He and Cory sneak into his cabin, where Feeny reveals he knows Shawn more than Shawn realizes. His background, his favorite music group, the number of schools he apparently went to in the past. It's kind of creepy, especially the weird fuzzy feeling it gives Shawn.

Later, he and Cory drop Feeny's watch down the drain. They find a diary that explains where the watch came from and Shawn learns that the stuffiest man he's ever known once cut school to spend the weekend at this very cabin with his wife. The watch was a gift from her.

The next morning, he emerges from the septic tank with it in his hand, and Feeny's shocked. So's Shawn. He can't believe he just did something nice for the guy.

It's all downhill from there. Feeny counsels him during a fight with Cory over a stupid video contest, _we can't always choose our family, but you're lucky enough that you can._ The man becomes more and more a part of his life and to Shawn's shock, he finds himself listening more and more.

When punks vandalize Feeny's house and then try to do the same to the school during finals time, Shawn realizes he's learned more from Feeny than he realizes when he tries to stop the kids he normally would have joined without a second thought. He starts a bed and breakfast in Feeny's house and instead of being punished, he's told he's got more of a gift for economics than he gave himself credit for. Feeny sticks up for him, tries to help him, encourages him. Helps him through a crisis of faith. Gives him cake in order to get him to take the SATs.

Feeny's not just a stuffy old man anymore. He's far from a friend, but Shawn's realizing he's misjudged the guy he used to annoy for kicks.

 

IV. A changing dynamic

By senior year, Feeny's got him convinced he's got a future. It all started with a pair of Super Bowl tickets, and suddenly he's thinking about colleges. He'll never get into Stamford or Yale or anyplace fancy like that, but he can get in _somewhere._ And it's all Feeny's fault.

He ends up at Pennbrook University with Cory, Topanga, Angela and Eric and develops a love for poetry. His grades still aren't the best, but he's putting more effort into his work. It's like suddenly he cares where he goes in life. He becomes a writer in his second year, suddenly developing a passion for putting on paper the words he can't say out loud. He writes about Cory, Angela, Jack, his father, his childhood, everything he's been through for the past few years.

He learns the difference between good and bad teachers. Bad is a guy who hits on Topanga and tries to claim she asked for it. Cory punches the guy out, everyone's put on trial and the jerk gets fired. Good is a guy who stays to talk to his students, holds classes outdoors sometimes, offers extra help if someone's failing.

And then there's still Feeny, who goes above and beyond just "good teacher". He groans and complains, but he's always there to help everyone. Especially Shawn. Feeny's there for him through all the tough personal business; his breakup and reunion with Angela, his troubles with Jack, and especially his father's death. He convinces Shawn that just because his family's kept a lot of skeletons in the closet doesn't mean the Hunter clan is doomed. He and Jack still have many years ahead of them to mend their roots, start a whole new and healthier branch of that family tree.

By now Feeny's become more than just a teacher. He's still scary, of course, and Shawn still makes plenty of jokes about him, but Feeny takes them all in good fun. No longer the prankster and the grumpy but patient old man, they're friends now. The very core of their relationship has changed.

 

V. Hard to say see you later

By the time he's ready to leave for New York with Cory, Topanga and Eric he can't believe he ever called Feeny a boring old man. He's even older than he was before now, but he's anything but boring. Maybe it's age, maybe it's something else, but they've come a long way from that afternoon in Cory's kitchen.

(He'd still do the book report the same way all over again, though, because come on. Bugs shooting fire out of their antennae and the peach being a spaceship? How is that _not_ the coolest thing ever?)

When it's his turn to say goodbye, he hugs Feeny tightly, fighting back tears. It's not really a goodbye, they can still write and call and email and stuff. But it's still the end of an era, he'll be in the city and Feeny will still be here. It's going to be strange, not looking over his shoulder and seeing his stern face or hearing his stuffy voice. How do you properly say "see you later" to someone who's been there forever?

He swallows, clears his throat, and says the only thing he can think of.

"You never gave up on me. Not even once." Because that pretty much sums up their relationship when he thinks about it. He spent years terrorizing and insulting Feeny, and Feeny just kept trying to help him. He knew Shawn better than Shawn knew himself sometimes, knew he could do better for himself. "Thank you." Because he _is_ doing better for himself now, because deep down he knew Feeny was right.

Mr. Feeny lets go of him and smiles.

"You'll do great things, Mr. Hunter. I'm sure of it."

Shawn can't stop a few tears from escaping as he goes to join Eric and Topanga. Once Cory's said his farewells, the four of them leave the old John Adams High School building and drive the rest of the way to the bus stop in silence.

Maybe they'll run into him again in the future. Maybe he _will_ turn up on a bench in Central Park or a Starbucks somewhere. But Shawn knows even if he doesn't, Feeny's still with him, and he always will be.

**Author's Note:**

> Since BMW's canon is so loose, I pretty much pretended the second season was grades 7&8 while the third was 9&10\. Timewise that barely makes sense, but Cory does mention going into his 8th year in the Student Body Election episode of S2, and Shawn's said to be 15 in S3. And an invisible timeskip could've happened. Ah, the joys of working with a canon that constantly retcons itself, ahaha!
> 
> The "doesn't like, trust, or respect" bit about Minkus's thoughts on Shawn is obviously from "Cory's Alternative Friends". I couldn't not use it!
> 
> I also added a few little headcanon-y things here and there, mainly the first part and Shawn's encounter with Feeny, and Feeny's advice to Jack and Shawn regarding their family later on.


End file.
